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The Wolf Of All Streets
Trump Avoids Crypto, Markets Decline on Day1 | Crypto Town Hall
00:49:44
Trump Avoids Crypto, Markets Decline on Day1 | Crypto Town Hall
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- [00:00]
Zach
Good morning Everybody. Happy Tuesday. 10:20am Here on Crypto Town Hall. We do the show every weekday, 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. Man, there has been a lot to talk about of late. I think today, clearly executive actions are the most heavily focused on topic. It's a little disappointing to many in the crypto community that Trump did not mention bitcoin or crypto in his inauguration speech. I think if you thought bitcoin or crypto are going to be in his inauguration speech, then you need to step a little bit outside of our echo chamber and bubble. But also that there were no initial executive orders even mentioning crypto. I believe it at just under 50 yesterday. But the rumor is that there's 200 orders coming and that could happen over a matter of days. But promises like Free Ross on day one did not happen. Maybe Ross will be freed here on day two. We have not seen obviously crypto made a national priority. As one of them said. We certainly have not seen a strategic bitcoin reserve, an overturn of SAB121. Those are the executive orders I think largely that people are looking for with regard to this industry. What we have seen is an absolute shitstorm of meme coin launches. So we got that. But before the first day, obviously of the inauguration and of the Trump presidency, I can just give my quick take. Nothing, nothing to see here. This is not the most important thing happening in the world right now. And they're going to get to. That's my assumption. But I guess I could be proven right or wrong in a matter of hours, if not days or weeks. Inside news. I don't know if anybody has bothered to look@doge.gov but if you have it is the funniest, most amazing telling thing you could ever have in this industry, which is it just says an official website of the United States government Department of Government Efficiency. The people voted for major reform. And just the Doge logo like the cryptocurrency Doge Shiba Inu. That's the entire website. I think it's fair to say that we're going to probably get what we want here with with time Rare day. I have Robby and Haseeb here, two, two of our favorites who can speak to everything that's happening in the industry. Haseeb first. I mean, are you surprised you just jumped on. I don't know if you kind of heard the preface. I was saying that people are clearly disappointed at the lack of attention to the industry from Trump on day one. Not a surprise to me at all. Do you think we get something on day two or does it even matter? You know, what happens in this very short term?
- [02:53]
Haseeb
That's a good question. I do think that, you know, when you come into the presidency, you're pretty busy. There's just like, there's a lot of stuff that's happening and there's a lot of constituencies. I think on some level, the industry needs to slow its role. There's not that many time sensitive things that we need to worry about. It's not like immigration, it's not like tariffs. If this happens in a week or two weeks or four weeks, honestly, it doesn't really make a difference. Obviously, the market cares a lot about it. But Trump has made pretty clear and now we know where his allegiance is stand with respect to the Trump family business. Crypto is the Trump family business now. So on that level, I'm not really worried that we're going to see a positive regulatory environment for crypto. And the main pieces of that, I think are likely to get delivered in due time. But there's really no urgency around it the way that there is around many other things when you immediately come into office.
- [03:44]
Zach
Yeah. You alluded to the most cynical view, which still is massively bad, beneficial to the industry, which is that even in his own self interest. Right. We now know what he thinks he can legally do, which means that it's a mirror into what the industry can largely be looking forward to being able to do in the United States over the coming years. Right. I mean, if he can just be launching off meme coins willy nilly. My favorite, by the way, is not even Trump and Melania at this point. It's Lorenzo the pastor, who, you know, prayed at the inauguration, then immediately launched a meme coin as if it was like a huge surprise, but then talked about how he's locking up his tokens in the liquidity pool. Dying, but very clear.
- [04:26]
Haseeb
I did not see this.
- [04:27]
Zach
You didn't see it? Oh, my God, no. I'll get the tweet and I will pin it above. It's incredibly like walked off stage inauguration. The crypto community has blessed me with a meme coin, something like that. Like, as if you didn't know. And then literally talked about the liquidity pool. Then like I said, God bless, you know, I mean, does anybody else see that? I mean, while we're talking about this, Because I'm gonna go find the tweet and unpack it. Alex, you did. Alex, didn't you text it to me?
- [04:54]
Alex
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I sent it to You. Yeah, it was just ridiculous. You'll find the tweet. But, yeah, it's just like, oh, yeah, the Lord blessed me with this or whatever. And I don't know anything about crypto and then being like, but here's how. I'm locking it in a liquidity pool to protect the community and earn perpetual fees. And.
- [05:13]
Haseeb
This is getting depressing. I feel like I don't want to know. I don't want to know about any more of these.
- [05:18]
Robbie
Okay.
- [05:19]
Zach
It's. It's in the nest up above now. But the crypto community was kind enough to send me Lorenzo, so I have permanently locked my tokens into a pool. So never sell on the community, but rather just earn fees as our token continues to flourish. Amazing day. All the glory to God. Then, of course, the contract address, like, I think it's probably just pumped up fun, but it's just hilarious. At the end of the contract address is pumpkin.
- [05:42]
Alex
Yeah, it's a pumped up fund. I mean, he does have a massive 500k market cap right now. So this is definitely the next great meme coin that's out there.
- [05:51]
Zach
Yeah, he is. Yeah. Not. Not exactly crushing it, but Haseeb, like, that was, you know, my first. You just kind of. And I've said it over and over again. I'm not really fearful of, like, people's opinions of what I think, but, like, I was a little disheartened by Trump. Just the timing and structurally how it was launched and. And then Melania just, like, hit different. I think that was, like, the real cue that this was nonsense. And now you just see, like, the kind of larps and copycats that are becoming down the line. But we're going to be getting this from everyone, right? I mean, if you see what Trump did, why, you know, like, why not people?
- [06:26]
Haseeb
Yeah. I mean, the reality is that there are very few people on earth that have the kind of following and the kind of power that Trump has. There aren't a lot of Trumps out there to do this. So, like, you know, Lorenzo, bless his heart, God bless, I guess, you know, good luck in launching your. Trying your meme coin grift. But it's funny because it's obviously not going to work. If it did work, it wouldn't be funny. So I think a world leader launching a meme coin, like, you have to be a Putin or a Xi Jinping for it to have this kind of an impact and this kind of shot heard around the world thing, I really don't think there's going to be a second. I think that the normalization of grift is the thing that makes me queasy and I think should make anybody in crypto queasy that, you know, this is not a meme coin.
- [07:16]
Zach
Right.
- [07:16]
Haseeb
When you own 80% of the supply of an asset, that's not a meme coin. That is, especially when it has your name on it. Right. That's not a meme coin. That's asking people to put money in a piggy bank with your hand underneath the bottom. That's like. It's just describing this thing as a meme coin is itself kind of giving in to this distortion of reality that we just witnessed over the last 72 hours. So that being said, it's not going anywhere. And that's the thing, is that you can't sue a president until he's out of office. It is basically illegal to try to drag him into court. So I think what you will see is that he's going to get away with this. But it's not necessarily true that anybody can get away with this kind of a thing, because even if it's not criminal, you can. You can just drag this person into a civil court and any. Any judge is going to say, like, yeah, that's the griftiest thing I've ever heard.
- [08:07]
Zach
Yeah, Carlos said that. Yeah. I mean, Fred, you're a lawyer. Obviously, Carlo said that yesterday. He's, you know, I kind of was like, it's gonna. I think people are gonna feel empowered. The president did it while I can. And Carlo said that is. Even if it's the president, that's not gonna hold up in court. Right. So this should not be viewed as carte blanche for anyone in the United States to do exactly what he just did. Although, listen, I think what it does imply.
- [08:32]
Haseeb
Yeah. What it does imply is that very likely Paul Atkins, who's coming in to be the new SEC commissioner, or, sorry, SEC Chair, Paul Atkins, is probably going to try to carve out as best he can something to make the Trump coin not illegal. Because if the Trump coin's illegal, it's just. It's not that you can't make the Trump coin illegal because it doesn't matter. You're not going to enforce against your own president and the person who appointed you. But it's more than. It just makes you look bad. It just makes you look illegitimate. And any public servant, it's in their interest to somehow square the circle so that they don't look like a phony.
- [09:06]
Zach
So I think Tom Atkins is Going.
- [09:08]
Haseeb
To find some way to draw a circle around this thing.
- [09:10]
Zach
I agree. Because, you know, listen, obviously Everybody wants a 180 from, from Gensler in this industry, but it's almost like if Atkins didn't know about this, which I doubt he did, to be quite honest, but if there's no plan for legitimizing it, it's almost like Trump has kneecapped his own SEC commissioner before he's even approved or appointed. Because it makes him, you know, it just makes it look like it's so bad. And by the way, you made me feel better because I was saying grift yesterday and everybody was freaking out at me and I was forced to change my verbiage from grift to cash grab, even though I have about 50 tweets about it. They called it a grift, but it's a grift.
- [09:50]
Alex
Grift.
- [09:51]
Haseeb
I completely agree. Look, I'm like you. I can say whatever the hell I want. I think it's a grift. I think. That being said, clearly the people in crypto are not the ones who are going to lose money. Right? The people who are in this, in this, in this Twitter spaces are probably the people who will look at the unlock schedule. We'll see. Oh, they unlock in three months. That's probably the time to exit. This thing is going to be down only once 80% of the supply gets unlocked. Basically like four times. The current market cap is going to be in the hands of a single person, which is the President of the United States, who, of course, this is now the majority of his net worth and he wants to get out while the getting is good. He has no long term conviction about a fucking meme coin. So to me, I think the part about this is so sad is that the crypto people, the people in this industry, are not the people going to get hurt. Yeah, you might lose money trading a meme coin, whatever. But everybody in here understands the momentum and understands the meme coin game. They understand things like FTV and market cap. Most people who, this was their first experience with crypto. There are millions of people. This is their first experience ever with crypto. They went, they saw the website, they said, oh, download moonshot, they downloaded Moonshot and they dutifully bought the coin. And those people have no idea. They don't know how to read one of these charts. They don't understand what FPVs are, they don't understand unlock schedules. They might even assume that it works like the way the stock market works. If Trump wants To sell djt, which is Truth Social, the SPAC that he took public. Trump has said that he's never going to sell or not, I don't know, never. But he said, look, I'm not going to sell. I'm going to diamond hand my own stack. And that's why it's part of the reason why DJT on the stock market is basically a meme stock, you know, trades and billions of dollars.
- [11:34]
Zach
Yeah, but. Yeah, right, right.
- [11:36]
Haseeb
But the difference. The difference is that if Trump sells, he has to declare publicly in a public filing that he is going to sell. And that is going to be, you know, everybody kind of assumes that there's an orderly way in which this is supposed to happen. Okay? If you sell your own meme coin, there's no fucking rules. There's no filing you have to make. You just do it. You just start selling into the liquidity. And a lot of liquidity is passively sitting there because basically it's locked in, or people themselves are providing liquidity. So I think what's very clear is that the least informed people are the ones who are going to lose the most money, which is why, to me, I think this can only be described as grift.
- [12:15]
Zach
Yeah. And he can never sell his DJT stock, but take massive loans against it until the end of time. Right. Never take a taxable transaction, never sell anything, and still get all of the benefit of holding that meme.
- [12:31]
Haseeb
Right. But that's the other thing is that like, you know, djt, I don't know how much of DJT he owns. I would assume it's nowhere near 80%. And I think for this, his holdings on a march to market basis from Trump vastly dwarf what he owns in djg. Right. It's just, it's not even the same order of magnitude. And supposedly, I don't know if this.
- [12:51]
Zach
Is confirmed, 10 times his on paper value of what he owns in this was probably 5 to 10, which is obviously his life collectively.
- [13:02]
Haseeb
Right. Which is obviously a joke. Right? Like, if he actually started dumping, he wouldn't get anywhere near that, but he'd definitely get in the billions. And supposedly, I don't know if this has been confirmed, but supposedly the wallets associated with CIC Digital had already liquidated $500 million worth of Trump into cash. That alone is more than he's ever made from any of these SPACs or any of these real estate deals. Nobody makes a billion dollars in a single deal, but he made half a billion dollars from launching a meme coin on a Friday night.
- [13:30]
Zach
And he probably. All he did was probably send it or his team sent a tweet for him and probably never even asked. You know, it's really a pretty astounding. But I mean, that speaks to obviously him being the most powerful and probably notable human being on the planet. I mean, to your point, like maybe Taylor Swift can do this, you know.
- [13:52]
Haseeb
Right. But unlike djt. Unlike djt. So your point was very good one, which is that he can borrow against DJT and the banks at least will play along and give him liquidity on that paper value of that company. Nobody's going to lend him money against Trump token. It's a fucking meme coin. It goes up 50%, down 50% in the span of a day. The only way you can monetize Trump coin is to sell it. That's why there is such a short lockup investing period, because they understand the way you monetize this is by selling it to retail. So I think what you will see is that within the span of a year, this thing is going to nosedive. Of course it will. Anybody who's looking at any other token with 80% of the supply owned by a single actor would tell you exactly how this is going to play out.
- [14:34]
Zach
Yeah, but it'll probably be the slow rug instead of the fast ones that we see with meme coins. It'll be like any other token that was not deemed a meme coin from past cycles that just slowly sells off over three years. Right. As the tokens unlock, supply doesn't generally hit the market in tranches like that, especially if we're already in a bear market when half of it is coming out and you see the token go up. Fred legal expert, you know, what are you thinking about all this?
- [15:06]
Fred
I just wanted to respond to a couple of things there because I think they're a little bit off the base. But I did want to just briefly say that I would like to see a poly market bet for how long after Lorenzo, that we might see Lorenzo rolling in the benzo. So that's a little hip hop toasty right there.
- [15:22]
Zach
It is a really long hashtag.
- [15:24]
Fred
But the. I just want to. I disagree with a couple of things that were just said just on the legal side because you know, meme coins are what they are. But it's definitely. And you said Carlos said this, he was spot on, not illegal to sue the president for any of his business dealings. I mean, whether that gets iced as a civil lawsuit until he's out is another question. But again, Trump, I don't think really owns these Meme coins. I think he owns them through another layer of companies, you know, that he owns. For example, I mean, if you go onto the website, it's Fight, Fight Fight LLC is the. At least that's one entity that has some type of IP over the Trump meme coin. But also, if you look at the terms of service, I mean, what's going to happen and what I would expect to happen is that there's going to be lawsuits very quickly by people that really don't like Trump, because why not? It only takes one person who bought one Trump coin at 70 and then now sold it at 20 to file a lawsuit. But, you know, even there, the terms of service itself, they're going to try and force you into arbitration wave class action. So the end, the end point is that this was all very well thought out from a legal perspective in terms.
- [16:45]
Zach
Of timing and timing before he was president. And yeah, yeah, perfect.
- [16:50]
Fred
Yeah. And so, yeah, 100%. I mean, this was very, very well researched, done, executed at all the rate. Now, I'm saying that from a legal perspective, outside of whether you think the way the lockup and the smart contracts are executed or the liquidity pools or whatever, you know, there's just. He's got the right people legally that we're advising on, on this, to make it as civilly as he's protected civilly as possible. And, you know, I think at the end of the day, whatever you think about Meme coins or whatever, I mean, this just to me was a great way to introduce to the masses crypto. I mean, yeah, it's not, you know, Bitcoin or maybe the other utility coins that we like, but it's still got the word out there that crypto is a thing. And it's. I mean, if you don't think, even though Trump didn't say anything on day one, he might not say anything today. If you don't think he just doubled or tripled his net worth from crypto in the billions and he's not thinking about crypto every day. I mean, you're missing the point.
- [17:55]
Zach
Alex. Go ahead, Alex.
- [18:01]
Alex
Sorry, mute button's hard to get to. Yeah, I think the. So I think Fred's right about one thing. Like, it's not like Trump's a signer on the multi sig here or like, you know, having $50 billion of meme coin on his ledger. You know, other people are actually the ones who obviously did all the work here and are actually sitting controlling Fight, Fight Fight LLC or whatever it is that's holding it. I think you could almost argue, though, that's a bad thing. Trump at least has the ego where he would want to make sure the coin doesn't go down, whereas if other people can actually are in control of the selling on it, they will have other concerns like pulling whatever money they can out of it. So I think depending on how good the alignment is, between Trump's desire to continue to look really good and strong and have the biggest meme coin in the world versus other people trying to pull it out is, I think, where you'll see some of that tension. But I think the, you know, the other thing is like Khasib you were talking about with the issue it presents for the sec. I don't think it presents any issue for Atkins or the sec. Meme coins have been the only thing that has been legal for years. There's no. It's not like there's any utility or usefulness. There's no argument that this is a security or anything.
- [19:15]
Zach
Yeah, but you're right.
- [19:17]
Haseeb
These are not meme coins.
- [19:18]
Zach
That's right. I was going to say just hiding under the guise of meme coin and saying no utility. If you're actually holding the supply and you know that the price action is dependent on one person, I think could lean towards security depending on.
- [19:29]
Haseeb
It's got his fucking name on it. It's not a meme. What's the meme?
- [19:33]
Zach
Yeah, it's a celebrity coin.
- [19:34]
Alex
I mean, if it's a promoter, what's the definition? All right, I see what you're saying there. I.
- [19:40]
Simon
Right.
- [19:41]
Zach
Can't the SEC or somebody make an.
- [19:42]
Alex
Argument, I guess is what I default to.
- [19:45]
Zach
But we've seen that the argument used.
- [19:47]
Haseeb
He created an llc. He created an LLC to market it. He tweeted it on the most famous Twitter account in the world and it's got his name on it.
- [19:57]
Nick
Right.
- [19:58]
Haseeb
The question for whether security is efforts of others. I mean, you can say, well, who's nobody's effort. It was a. Somebody just launched a ticker and then the whole community took off with it. If it's one dude's name and he owns 80% of supply, what possible argument could there be that this is not. You're betting on Donald Trump doing the right thing with this. With this point.
- [20:20]
Alex
I'd say you have issues around. You have potential issues around the common enterprise leg. I think there's. It's an interesting test there. When you don't have. When you've got an established company that doing it. But is insular to that company on it. The efforts of others is the other interesting question, one there in terms of why people are doing it, I think their argument would be, and it would, based on the case law that I've read on, it would probably be not totally weak that they're basically offering it as a collectible in the same way. I mean, this is obviously the argument that a lot of companies have tried to use, that it's no different than Pokemon cards or anything like that, but they're making no promises or indications about what happens with this thing on the long term. Right. This has been our number one frustration as an industry is that you can put out things with no value, you know, and no reason to exist. But as soon as you want to do something that is useful or has a value to existing, then all of a sudden that's the thing that's illegal. Which is where I come back to my main concern, that, like, the thing the industry actually needs is a law that clears Congress and actually establishes a real regulatory framework here. And those are the people who are most likely to be upset by this and basically become intransigent on wanting to move, especially with how thin the Republican majority in Congress is. Right. They need Democrats to be on board with any kind of regulatory or market structure bill that they want to get across. And the more that, you know, you have these things happening that looks like, you know, Trump using the industry for his own gains, the less likely that that becomes each day. And so that's. That's where my big concern comes down.
- [22:07]
Zach
Yeah, I think a lot of this, what Haseeb said before, just comes up down to whether Atkins walks in and says how he's not appropriate for crypto assets. Right. Like, we've all. We've all endlessly debated whether a test from the 1930s and 40s is appropriate for determining what a crypto asset is. But listen, the Howey test, if it remains applied, there's four prongs, right? Investment of money, common enterprise, expectation of profit, efforts of others. Hard to argue. People are investing money regardless of what the disclaimer says. There's a common enterprise, right? Everybody's buying it because they think it's going to go up, not because they just want to own a piece of Trump. And it's definitely the efforts of others. So I'm not saying it's a security dude. I hope they drop the how he does entirely. But you can see how that argument.
- [22:54]
Alex
The SEC can't drop the Howey test. The Howey test is what the Courts decided. Right. So the only, the only way that gets changed is either the courts deciding to create a new category and test, which isn't going to happen for Congress passing a law that creates a new definition of like, you know, what we'll call a digital asset is, or a digital commodity, whatever name you end up wanting to put against it. Atkins can choose not to go after things. He can exercise enforcement discretion, prosecutorial discretion on what they go after, and they can try and make rules that affect around the edges. But fundamentally, until Congress passes a law structure. Yeah. And a market structure, how we test is what determines what is a security or not.
- [23:42]
Zach
Andy.
- [23:44]
Robbie
Hi, man. I just want to share my views on a few things. You know, so number one, you know, all my Asian friends who are very much like gamblers, you know, they see that, you know, this big IP Trump coin is actually a really good, maybe a really good point for everybody to get in, you know, awareness wise. It has really gone up a lot. You know, all the normies are all coming in. I think this is one thing that I personally recognize that it is quite cool. But at the same time, I listen to a lot of these other spaces and some other comments from my lawyer friends and so forth. Their general comment is that, well, if someone wants to sue Donald Trump, they can find all sorts of excuses to do that. But whether or not this thing is going to take years, or whether or not it's, whether it passed the Howie test, whether it's the securities or whatnot, I think this is going to be a long battle because the regulations in detail is not very clear. But my personal concern is, would this launch from the President create a new or even the worst form of ICO that we are going to see even worse than what we see in 2017? Because literally anybody can just come out with their own coin. And then if there's no repercussion to all these launches, then the whole industry will become a laughingstock. That's something that I'm more concerned about. I'm not sure anyone else concerned about, about this factor.
- [25:37]
Andy
I think from a reputational. Yeah, from a reputational standpoint and a like economic standpoint, I think that is a very big concern. I mean, we already saw yesterday the pastor who gave the.
- [25:49]
Zach
Yeah, we talked about. Yeah, he did.
- [25:51]
Andy
He did a shitcoin immediately afterwards. And so that's, that's real. And I think Trump and Melania coins are damaging reputationally to the industry. However, like, we're talking about the sort of nexus between what Trump is doing and like the regulatory environment. It's interesting both of, I guess all three of crypto projects are actually pretty legally buttoned up as far as crypto projects go. Both the Trump Meme coin And the Trump NFTs are very clearly described as digital collectibles. There's not a roadmap of other sort of financial gain that they have planned for people who are holding these things. And I think you can make a quite good argument that under the Howey test, those are not securities. Whereas if you look at World Liberty Financial, that has been conducted explicitly as a securities offering, seemingly following the rules for private placements for the credit investors and no trading on these things yet. So, you know, while it could be that there would be private lawsuits against Trump, this could all go badly. At least the way that Trump's legal team is handling these projects is to be very conservative and following what the current state of the laws is and not looking ahead to how the SEC might be.
- [26:59]
Robbie
But would you think that if both the coins are going south, not doing very well? I think reputational risk is there and he might even get more lawsuit. Will you think that he will distance himself away from the token arm's length and then, and then, and then let, let whoever that is running it do whatever they want? Or do you think that he's gonna pump, he's gonna pump, well, loss?
- [27:34]
Andy
It's just a, as it stands now, it's just a collectible. The Trump coin doesn't do anything. If you buy the Trump coin, you're buying it according to its terms as an expression of your support of Donald Trump, not as an expectation that you're going to make money if the price of the token goes down. I mean, look, there, there might be class action lawyers, especially Democrats, who try and do these lawsuits, but I don't see a straightforward legal theory that you could use to go after him for this even if you lose money.
- [28:01]
Haseeb
I don't know. That sounds pretty implausible to me. Like, I think a judge is going to look at this on a facts and circumstances basis and say, boy, this really sure looks like you're enticing people to buy this thing. And you tweeted about it from obviously the most powerful account in the world. And what did you think was going to happen?
- [28:20]
Andy
But that's not illegal to entice people to buy your collectible. Trump sells all sorts of Trump branded shit.
- [28:27]
Haseeb
How is this a collectible? Hold on. His NFTs were collectibles.
- [28:31]
Andy
The token is also described as a collectible. There's no other features to it. They're not claiming the token will do anything. It's just a digital fungible collectible.
- [28:40]
Haseeb
I mean, look, in principle, you could make some kind of tortured argument that somehow which trades on exchanges is a collectible.
- [28:48]
Andy
The thing that would give. The thing that would give plaintiffs lawyers in the SEC jurisdiction is if this thing meets the definition of an investment contract on the Howey test. In order to be an investment contractor on the Howey test, there has to be. It has to be essential in order for the bull case for the thing to play out that some particular group of people exercise managerial, meaning business efforts to make the profit that investors expect play out. And here I don't think there is any promises that have been made that they're going to do anything with the Trump token that could lead someone to reasonably believe that Trump is going to add features to this token to make it more valuable. That's just not.
- [29:22]
Haseeb
You don't need to add features to a token to make it more valuable. That's not required in any way.
- [29:28]
Andy
And it is. It says essential man in particular others. That's what the Howie test.
- [29:32]
Haseeb
Managerial efforts. Managerial effort has nothing to do with the roadmap, has nothing to do with adding tech to.
- [29:36]
Andy
Where are the.
- [29:37]
Haseeb
You just say, I'm going to pump this thing. If you just say I'm going to pump this thing, I'm going to tweet about it. I'm going to help get it listed on exchanges, I'm going to help it get liquidity. I'm going to put initial liquidity in there where they don't need to say it, they just need to do it. If it is implying, and it is correctly inferred by the market that Trump is going to. The Trump team or Fight LLC or whatever it is is doing these things like this is the reason why, to be clear, there's no case law around this in either direction. We have not seen a celeb coin, which is very different from a meme coin, actually get adjudicated in the court of law of whether or not that is going to constitute an investment contract on the hourly test. It's very different though, than just saying, okay, this is a collectible that could just have absolutely anything. This is a meme coin that somebody owns 80% of that has their face on it. I think there's a very strong argument that that is going to be an unregistered security. And now to be clear, it's not like Atkins is going to have some enforcement actually against it, like Obviously not. The question is, can a class action lawyer get a juicy settlement out of this company? And I think the answer is probably yes.
- [30:47]
Andy
Yeah, I think they can. Look, I'm not necessarily a fan of Trump, but I'm not a fan of this token. I actually think that that is the more strained argument. I just don't see any statement they've made that would give someone the reasonable impression, at least at this point. That could change. They could say stuff that they are going to undertake, all of the efforts that you're saying as opposed to they launched this token. And the terms clearly state this is an expression of support for Trump. And whether or not you like the word collectible as opposed to celebrity, token, whatever, the thing is not being pitched as a financial instrument.
- [31:22]
Simon
And I'm also pretty sure that this is requiring no effort to get listed on exchanges. This is a smart contract that any exchange can list and because.
- [31:31]
Andy
And they'll jump to it. Robinhood Day 1 Coinbase Day ones exactly said they were going to list these things. This is. I don't think you need the specific managerial efforts of Fight Fight Fight LLC or whatever it is. I think that there is a shelling point around the celebrity of Trump that creates this memetic effect.
- [31:49]
Alex
Yeah, I was going to say, I.
- [31:51]
Haseeb
Don'T think it's very interesting for us to go back and forth on the mechanics like they listed on Meteora. They had this thing ready to go on Moonshot on day one. Moonshot is a company. It's a centralized company that has their own product. Obviously nobody else had Trump coin listed but Moonshot in the very beginning, the idea that they just pop this thing on chain, they're like, oh, whoopsie daisy, let's see what happens. That's clearly not correct. Now. Yes. I don't know if they ever coordinated with any of the centralized exchanges. We don't know that. We wouldn't know unless somebody goes into discovery and figures out was there coordination around this? My guess is that probably those teams reached out and they were like, hey, we want to list this, but there's no fucking supply. We need inventory. Can you help us scrounge up some market makers, figure out who actually has inventory of this thing? Because no exchange is going to list this without some market makers actually being able to get some initial liquidity on there. The reality is we don't know. But very, very rarely do coins show up on centralized exchanges within a day, regardless of whether they're Trump Token or not, without some attempt at coordination with.
- [32:53]
Andy
Let's Say they did coordinate. Right. The question is, if I am someone who's buying this token on Robinhood or Coinbase, am I buying it based on an expectation that some particular group of people is going to undertake business efforts to make number go up? And I don't think you can point to any of the current marketing materials for this token that would reasonably give that expectation at this point in time. It's not enough, just that they.
- [33:19]
Haseeb
I agree with that. There's not much there. I agree there's almost there. But their efforts, but the managerial effort of trying to put somewhat disingenuous trying to get this thing listed on every major exchange, if in fact they did, we don't know. But to the extent to which they took actions to make this a tradable asset on financial platforms, it's like a judge is not just going to silently look at the things that. Well, they didn't tweet anything, so I guess we have to let them go. Like, no, they're not stupid. Judges are not stupid. People are not stupid.
- [33:51]
Andy
For sure. But you do have to look the facts and the circumstance are whether there was a reasonable expedition of profit based on essential managerial efforts and you're failing to give any indication what those essential managerial efforts would be.
- [34:06]
Zach
Yeah, I think we can.
- [34:07]
Andy
Like you said, judges are not stupid.
- [34:10]
Zach
Well, I. One day we'll find out if this even comes in front of a judge or not. I think at the. In the meantime, we're going to see how a lot of meme coin, non meme coins launched. Robbie, you haven't had a chance to speak. What do you make of all of this?
- [34:26]
Nick
So I think, you know, the legal arguments aside, I think that this was an opportunity taken obviously to make an enormous amount of money, which, you know, is kind of on brand. As I replied to your tweet, I think you had the best take on it initially on Saturday. And I think honestly, you know, as was said earlier, I think Haseeb might have said it, I do think, and others have echoed it, I don't think this is good for the space generally because I feel like it's a good reminder that actually what we've needed all along is some sensible guidelines and, you know, dare I say, regulations as opposed to just an environment of absence of all rules and regulations, because that actually doesn't necessarily move the space forward either.
- [35:13]
Zach
Yeah. Do you think that this gives any indication of what the environment is going to look like in the United States for other projects that are looking to launch? I mean, listen, you guys have a massive portfolio company portfolio at Animoca. Obviously every one of those companies has to be thinking, hey, what's my US strategy now?
- [35:35]
Nick
Sure. Well, so obviously I think this is a better environment than, than the environment that we just had and experienced. I think that's without a doubt. I do think that we have to approach it carefully. But definitely we're, you know, pushing all, all guns blazing, so to speak, in terms of looking at the opportunities in the US market in addition to other places. Whereas we used to kind of carve out the US explicitly for many years, you know, we're launching right now, you know, a token for something called one football, which we do in, in Europe. And the intention was to build that under the, the new M framework and really focus on it being European first. Not just because it's soccer, but I think now, you know, obviously we're contemplating the US very much in that whole framework because it's exciting that the US is becoming a part of the story again. I think we just need to proceed cautiously. And I also think that we have to keep in mind the history of the president, which is generally to put himself first, so that whatever, you know, actions he may take in the crypto space may not necessarily be an indication of plans for the rest of the industry, only for what he's interested in doing for himself. So I think as long as the industry's goals are aligned with his own personal goals, then we might see some progress.
- [36:55]
Zach
Interesting take. Yeah, that's my kind of base case. Cynical view as well. I wonder though then if, you know, how absurd would it be or interesting and I guess beneficial to all of us if all of a sudden they did cash out a billion dollars and he did what was rumored, which is have in some way no capital gains on profits for US made crypto and all of a sudden there's no taxes to be paid on that, right? Or no, I think there's some interesting potential things here that could happen, you know, even if it's, even if we're so cynical and just think it's in selfish.
- [37:32]
Nick
Yeah, no, 100%. And actually I've had similar discussions with legislators in the UK where I live, because I think, you know, for the UK it's a big opportunity, you know, now, you know, one of those sort of post Brexit things is the ability to kind of make our own guidelines and rules, rules in these areas. And I think that one of the things I've observed throughout Europe and also in the Middle east is a lot of migration of talent in this industry based upon tax treatment, as we all know. And I do think it's a huge opportunity for places that want to attract our industry and talent from our industry to address those issues because we saw a huge flood of talent going to places like Lisbon or even Milan for the financial services industry and especially the UAE as, as everybody knows. So these things really do matter when it comes to attracting talent.
- [38:26]
Zach
Yeah, I agree with all of that. I'm just wondering what a company's plans are in this sort of transitional environment to come back to the United States or start to confidently build here. You have to even wonder if we. Yeah, go ahead.
- [38:43]
Simon
Sorry.
- [38:43]
Nick
I was going to just say the TLDR for us is definitely, you know, we're, we're putting lots of resources into, you know, charting our U. S. Strategy and very much, you know, as I mentioned with the, with the one football, we're working with base and we're trying to establish more relationships with centralized exchanges in the US and, and things that we had, you know, kind of made an effort to avoid in the past. So I think whatever, however, however your dial is, you know, from 0 to 10 in terms of cynical on, on what happened over the weekend, I do think that the US Is very much front and center of our sort of BD outlook for the next, for the next year.
- [39:25]
Zach
Does anybody have a strong view, just kind of circling back to the original topic on the odds that we'll see executive order that even mentions crypto. Having seen nothing yet. And I guess a second question there, Zach, I saw you jump again, so you can address this one too. I mean, obviously free. Free Ross. Obviously Free Ross was a day one thing. Do you think we get that? Elon Musk tweeted that it would happen, so that's pretty compelling.
- [39:53]
Andy
Yeah, I mean, the rumors are both will happen sometime this week. I don't, I certainly don't know for sure. But, you know, it would be weird for Elon to step out on the Ross thing if that wasn't true. It clearly wasn't a day one priority, but I would expect that to happen. And then the rumor is there will be at least one crypto executive order, Whether that is the creation of a crypto council or a repeal of SAB121. I don't know that it's going to be like one of the big headline ones. I don't think you could remove capital gains by executive order. I don't know that we're going to get the SBIR executive order, but I think it is Likely we'll get something.
- [40:35]
Alex
Yeah, I was gonna say I think everyone I've talked to is very confident we're getting something this week on it. I think someone was just said getting your hopes up that it's going to be an sbr. Yeah, capital gains can't happen. That's again something that has to go through Congress. I think most likely is something like a crypto advisory council that comes in. Plus agreed. Like I think the Ross pardon will definitely come through given how clearly that was signaled from Elon on it. The again the big game comes back to what can get done in the first hundred days through Congress and what bills we can actually get seen there. But I think what we're going to see on the EO side is much more just a little bit of like signaling and then the folks who got are getting put into agencies and in those leadership positions are obviously going to be much more friendly to the industry than what we've been dealing with for the last four years.
- [41:26]
Zach
Yeah, I mean on the. Just quickly just those news updates obviously on the bitcoin side we had Saylor buying I think another $1.1 billion worth of Bitcoin. I guess he waited a day to do the announcement on Tuesday instead of a Monday. Not to conflict with MLK and the inauguration and Rumble made their first purchase of Bitcoin at $20 million. I think we're starting to sort of see this bubbling that the corporate bitcoin reserve strategy is going to have legs into the coming years. I guess the question there then becomes when do we see a Microsoft or an Apple or it's on the docket at Meta, one of these huge companies that would truly move the needle. When do we see one of them at it? Also I think we're up past 11 states even more that are considering a bitcoin reserve for the state and some structurally interesting ways that they're doing that. I know Texas kind proposing a novel idea that people could pay their taxes or make donations in bitcoin so they effectively don't have to go through the conflict of buying bitcoin for the balance sheet could basically just take whatever comes in and hold it if we don't get an sbir. How big in your minds would a state level strategic reserve be? Simon, you can address that one first actually.
- [42:53]
Simon
So obviously people want the big announcement but historically any opportunity to free yourself from the Federal Reserve and reform money has actually been done at the state level. So obviously JFK did the whole launching a dollar backed by Silver in 63 which had to be reversed after his assassination. But historically the fight for freeing the states from the Fed and state banking and versions of colonial script and various other things which led to the Declaration of Independence in the first place when the Brits tried to hyper inflate the state level currency. Dakota still has state level banking. So the opportunity for a strategic reserve at the state level I actually think is more significant. But I don't think people kind of see it as a, as a monetary geek like me. So state level strategic reserves is, is what is best for America. And then the opportunity for treasury to actually hold Bitcoin as a strategic reserve gives it that opportunity one day that if the federal, the fight between the Fed and the government becomes a prohibitive thing. This is when you can have radical monetary reform in a moment of need. And that is what a strategic bitcoin reserve is. It is strategically reserving Bitcoin for the moment you need it. And one day the Fed and the government are not going to be in line is my prediction. And that is what the day is, is coming for. So the states having it is a good thing. But I don't think the market will see it as, as, as that interesting 52 announcements.
- [44:45]
Zach
Well, it doesn't pressure like foreign central banks necessarily to add it, which is the game theory I think that people are talking about with. Excuse me, United States Strategic Reserve. Nick, go ahead. I can't hear Nick. Is Nick speaking? Can you guys hear him?
- [45:02]
Simon
I couldn't hear Nick.
- [45:04]
I
Hey, sorry about that guys. Can you hear me now?
- [45:05]
Zach
You're good. You sound very pro podcaster Mike. Good.
- [45:10]
I
Yeah, I appreciate it guys. Simon, I really valued your points there. I think that that was fantastic. I really agree with this idea that the strategic part of the strategic bitcoin reserve is for the potential monetary reorientation of the planet. And I say potential because it's not like we're looking at tomorrow going off of a dollar standard and going onto a bitcoin standard. But in the event that there is a hyperinflationary event or a monetary realignment or some sort of currency block that the United States didn't see coming, owning Bitcoin in a strategic way gives the United States the potential to move into a new system that is more bitcoin oriented or bitcoin centric. And the point about states accumulating Bitcoin to have a second option or a backup option if the country ends the Fed, or to even move toward a monetary system that doesn't involve the Fed, the states having a Strategic role in that is not something that I really factored in before you just said it there. So those are really great points, and I agree with them. And I just wanted to also mention here that when it comes to the strategic reserve at the federal level, even if we don't get the accumulation, the legitimacy that comes along with bitcoin being owned by the federal government in any way, shape or form just completely changes the asset class, I think, overnight, and the price. Because in the end, that's what I do. I'm a price analyst and I kind of back into narratives from the price. The price is telling you today, if it closed here, would be one of the top three or four closes of all time in bitcoin. I think the price is telling us that something will be happening. So that's my. That's my analysis, and I appreciate you guys having me on.
- [47:25]
Zach
So, anyone else, any further thoughts on this topic? We're going to move to wrap pretty soon, but I think, you know, tomorrow and the next day are going to be interesting shows because we'll have more clarity on the executive orders in this first day or two. And I think we'll have a lot more clarity when we see 200 executive orders that have been proposed, all signed, to see kind of where it shakes out for crypto. But I think everybody here generally seems to agree that whether we get executive orders or it's mentioned or top of the docket, that we have a much friendlier environment in the United States for crypto and that we're likely to see a lot of positive things. Fred, go ahead.
- [48:05]
Haseeb
Yeah, I was just going to say.
- [48:06]
Fred
To end everything is amazingly positive going forward, but just keep in mind what happened the first Trump presidency. I mean, not related to crypto at all, but there's just so much opposition and fighting. So just be prepared for any significant executive orders to, you know, face immediate lawsuits. I don't know if you guys talked about it previously, but Doge has already been sued in federal court that it's not a valid government function or the way that Trump set it up goes against, you know, various administrative laws. So there's going to be a lot of roadblocks. It's going to be a long road. It's still positive and everything's behind our backs. But don't freak out when you want. You see these things and this opposition thrown up.
- [48:49]
Zach
Yeah, it's going to be messy. I think we all understand that there's going to be political pushback and there's going to be a lot of fighting for clarity on every front. Guys, I think that's we've covered it for today. Awesome panel, guys. Everybody in the audience, please follow. Everybody on the panel. They're here for a reason because they actually keep us in line and give us a pulse of what's happening with the market news cycle. Of course, it was really great debate today. It's going to be very interesting. Four years, four days. And then even more interesting, four years coming. And we'll be here every day at 10:15am Eastern Standard Time to unpack it for you guys. So once again, Andy, Simon, I see Robbie, Fred, Nick, Alex, everybody. Give them a follow. Thank you, guys and hope to have all of you back very, very soon. Everybody, have a great day. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye.